


no moon, no stars above us

by honeycbx



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: M/M, implied mental health issues, off-screen/unnamed character deaths
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-05-13 18:02:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19256350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeycbx/pseuds/honeycbx
Summary: “stop looking at me like that.”“like what,” yifan says. his expression is close enough to neutral that anyone else would’ve bought it.“like you’re thinking about how sad you think my life story is.”“i don’t know anything about your life story,” yifan replies. “much less enough to decide it’s sad.”(a series of drabbles inspired by a list of words i found on tumblr, centering around kris and luhan's relationship through various years and across an assortment of aus.)





	1. A is for...

**Author's Note:**

> words from [this post](https://hymnotics.tumblr.com/post/184898430545/one-word-ideas-for-when-youre-feeling-stuck).

>   ** _alharaca_**  (spanish, n.) - an extraordinary or violent emotional reaction to a small issue

“shit, i’m sorry,” minseok starts. luhan flinches away from him and minseok pulls back, surprised. “what…?”

“don’t,” luhan says stiffly. “just… forget it.”

“it was an accident.” minseok bends down, armed with a roll of paper towels, to attack the mess he’s made of luhan’s drink. whatever it was. “i’ll go buy you a new one, i promise.”

luhan takes another step back. “i don’t _want_ you to promise me anything.”

his tone is harsh, harsher than luhan normally is. minseok stares up at him. “what?”

“forget it.” luhan joins him on the floor. “i’ll clean this up. just… go away. please.”

* * *

 

> **_áoyè //_** ** _熬夜_**  (chinese, n.) - to pull an all-nighter

luhan’s exhaustion only shows when he tilts his head at a certain angle. yifan resists the temptation to lean in and kiss it off him.

luhan looks at him, then, suddenly, as if he’s listening to yifan’s thoughts. “ _duizhang_.”

“don’t,” yifan says, because that’s _not_ who he is. he can’t be. luhan looks away from him, eyes eventually landing on the closed door to a side office. behind said door, yixing is working relentlessly to piece jongdae back together, aided by zitao and minseok. it’s the kind of scene where yifan becomes useless. luhan could be helpful, but yixing has long since stopped including him. he makes do where he can.

so yifan and luhan are here. watching the sun rise through a long-rusted bay door, because neither of them were able to sleep for even a minute.

“ _duizhang_ ,” luhan repeats. yifan manages not to flinch at the sound of it. “i know… i need you. to be…”

“you know i can’t.”

“you already are.” luhan won’t look directly at him. it’s hard to talk _feelings_ when they’ve been vaguely circling around each other for hundreds of years. the one downside to being effectively immortal: yifan has talked to, befriended even, hundreds and thousands of humans, and he’s never fallen in love with one because not one of them compares to luhan. “at least for me.”

yifan’s heart skips a beat. because it’s luhan, who’s _powerful_ and bold and reckless and _wordless_. “i could be. for you. i think.”

this time luhan looks at him. “that’s all i want.”

yifan nods.

* * *

 

> **_aranyhíd_**  (hungarian, n) - “the golden bridge”; the reflection of the sun as it shines on water

yifan wakes to gentle kisses against his spine. he groans at the sensation and pretends he doesn’t feel luhan smiling into his skin.

“it’s too early,” he mumbles into the sheets. luhan really does laugh, this time, before his weight is leaving. the cold settles in his absence, yifan’s body exposed to the room. luhan can only sleep if he’s cranked the air conditioning, so yifan settles for absorbing luhan’s body heat.

luhan is half-dressed by the time yifan sits up. he’s staring out the window, albeit from several paces away.

“that’s my shirt.”

luhan glances down at himself. “so it is. you think anyone will notice?”

yifan thinks someone might, but then again luhan has a predilection for owning shirts three sizes too big for him, so it would hardly be out of character. “they might.”

“you want it back?”

yifan understands. luhan’s avoidance of anything too intimate, the way he skirts just shy of anything resembling romance, which is fine, because yifan isn’t looking for any more or less than luhan’s willing to give him. but still, sometimes, it seems like luhan’s looking for something deeper and doesn’t know how to ask for it.

after a minute, yifan says, “keep it. i have an extra,” and pretends not to notice the delight in luhan’s eyes.

“the sunrise is gorgeous,” luhan says. yifan groans again.

“you’re unbelievable. what time is it?”

luhan fumbles for his phone. “7? 7:15.”

“i’m going back to sleep.” luhan ignores him, and now that he’s got his phone in hand he busies himself with trying to find the best shot of the sunrise, which he’ll presumably force yifan to pick a favorite from later, and yifan will pick the wrong one because luhan’s secretly already decided on the best, but the truth is yifan will think they all look pretty much the same but he plays along because he knows luhan enjoys it.

and when luhan accidentally swipes the picture away, revealing his full camera roll, yifan will pretend not to notice the pictures of himself, still tangled in sheets and half asleep and artfully aglow in the sunlight.

but maybe, he’ll think, if this is how luhan sees him, then maybe it’s not so bad after all.

* * *

 

> **_aswium //_** ** _아쉬움_**  (korean, n.) - the mingled feeling of disappointment, frustration, and regret that results from an unsatisfactory situation

“it’s a _business_ trip, luhan,” yifan sighs. luhan ignores him, busy methodically undoing the mess he’s made of his rubik’s cube. he’s slow about it, this time, not racing himself or anyone else’s timers. “i’ll be back in two weeks.”

“it’s not business,” luhan says, and yifan almost cries out of sheer happiness; it’s the first thing luhan’s said in the last hour, despite yifan’s numerous attempts to reason through this latest obstacle. “it’s your family. two weeks turn into a month, a month turns into a year—”

“i won’t let it,” yifan says firmly. “my home is here.”

he doesn’t say _with you_ , which is what he means, because he’s not going to add to the list of things luhan’s currently trying to work through.

“i know it’s not ideal,” yifan continues, when luhan says nothing. “i’ll call you every night, and i won’t let them keep me longer than a month, i _swear_. i’ll be back before you know it.”

he doesn’t offer to bring luhan along, because that’s not an option and they both know it. luhan can’t go back to beijing, and yifan can’t get luhan involved in this.

quietly, luhan says, “are you still angry?”

“no,” yifan promises. “absolutely not. i’m upset that i have to leave you, but i’m not angry at you. i love you.”

luhan never says it back, but it’s not like yifan ever expects him to. luhan’s the troubled artist type, and yifan only ever got involved with him because college was the time for rebellion, but luhan’s the only one from that phase of his life that’s stuck around, and he’s stuck for good, even if most of the time he’s too busy pouring out his childhood trauma into art to call yifan his boyfriend.

“if you need something, call yixing,” yifan continues. he’s thinking, already, of the gun on the top shelf of the closet, the sleeping pills in yifan’s bedside table, the kitchen knives.

“i’m not stupid.”

“i know,” yifan says. “i just… i expect you to be here when i come home.”

“and i will be,” luhan promises. “but you have to come home.”


	2. B is for...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't want anyone getting any ideas about me having a regular or frequent update schedule for this; i just happened to have a fair amount pre-written before i even decided to post it.

> **_basorexia_**  (n.) - the overwhelming desire to kiss

“i want to meet your friends,” yifan says quietly into luhan’s ear. luhan laughs and shoves him away, but he can’t help the glance at the people in their vicinity, just to be sure no one’s noticed. no one has, caught up in the sunny day and the fresh air, but yifan leans away easily. “you’ve met mine.”

“this isn’t—” luhan waves his hands, frustrated. “this isn’t some kind of even trade scenario, yifan. my friends are nothing like yours.”

“you’re scared for them.”

“of course i am. they’re innocent bystanders in all this.”

“so you think you’re not,” yifan presses, like he’s trying to get to some golden nugget of truth that luhan has to offer.

“i think,” luhan says carefully, and watches the glint in yifan’s eyes fade, “that i’m not… if there were a middle ground, that’s where i’d be.”

“there could be a middle ground,” yifan offers, a blatant attempt at reconciling whatever lies between them.

luhan looks at yifan, memorizing him, the lines of his jaw and the light in his eyes, the teeth worrying at his lower lip while he thinks, and a flash of _something_ electrifies luhan’s veins. yearning, aching, _want_ , the sheer overwhelming and unflattering desire for something the universe will never allow him to hold.

“penny for your thoughts,” yifan says quietly, and luhan realizes that yifan has been staring at him, too.

“i don’t think i belong anywhere.” honesty dragged out of him by the thrum of his veins and the beat of his heart and _yifan_ , always yifan.

“let yourself,” yifan suggests, and luhan kisses him.

* * *

 

> **_brontide_**  (n.) - the low rumble of distant thunder

“you can’t understand this,” yixing says quietly. gently. like he’s trying to ease yifan into the pain of rejection. it’s not working very well, if that’s what he’s going for.

“i want to.”

“you can’t,” yixing repeats. “not this. you’re powerful, yes, and you’re our leader. and you’ve been cast out as a freak time and time again, but you’ve never been a danger to anyone but yourself. you can’t possibly imagine the terror of realizing you’ve lost control, of waking up and not wanting to ask _how many people_ but knowing you have to ask anyway.”

the horizon is oranges and pinks, all brilliant and luminous. or whatever. somewhere in the general direction of the sunset, a third of yifan’s team is sparring out whatever frustrations have built up in their minds. yifan and yixing are here on the roof. below their feet, minseok tending to zitao.

yifan inhales. exhales. this messy existence. yes, he knows what it is to be too much fallen star, not enough human. no, he’s never almost killed someone, or actually done it. when yifan loses control of his energy the worst that could happen is yifan himself gets launched into the sky. in the grand scheme of things, one life isn’t a loss. barely even a blip on the radar.

he’s seen every member of his team upset, barely keeping a handle on things. loss of control in any one of them could be natural-disaster levels of catostrophic. and this, at least, yixing is right about: yifan won’t ever be able to understand the fear that his team has to live with.

lightning splits the sky in two. a matching spike of anxiety burns through yifan’s chest. the thunder that reaches them, moments later, is surprisingly soft. a faraway rainstorm. if yifan closed his eyes, he could pretend.

yixing’s hand finds its way to rest on top of yifan’s hand. “don’t worry,” he says gently, and maybe he’s working some magic because the tension melts out of yifan’s veins. “they’ll come home.”

* * *

 

> **_brumous_**  (adj.) - of grey skies and winter days; filled with heavy clouds or fog

it’s complicated. it’s messy. zitao complains for hours about the cold shoulder he’s received from kris at the awards show the two of them attended last month, and then luhan gets whiplash from the warmth with which kris greets him at their shoot two weeks later.

and there’s no rhyme or reason. none of them talk to yixing, much less the other members, because—well, kris because he’d cut ties so cruelly, left the rest of them with such a sour taste in their mouths, and luhan and zitao because they were both there when kris left, and they know the rules. those haven’t changed, in all likelihood, and luhan—well, luhan at least, he still loves them, he won’t risk the punishment they’d receive.

someone bumps his shoulder. luhan hisses, glancing up from his phone. the stranger’s already gone, up and vanished into the crowds of beijing. luhan runs his fingers along the seam of his sweatshirt, then reaches up and tugs at the hood to keep it in place.

his phone rings. luhan nearly flinches, nearly drops the damn thing, but he manages to answer it. “hey.”

“hey.” kris’ voice is smooth, even, as if he hasn’t spent the last hour pacing a groove into the floor of his living room, trying to build up the nerve to just _dial the damn number_. luhan smiles at the thought; he highly doubts kris could change that drastically.

“where are you?”

“home,” kris answers. vague. could be l.a., could be vancouver, could be guangzhou. luhan wrinkles his nose. it’s probably either l.a. or guangzhou, because kris has a complicated relationship with winter.

had. luhan’s not sure if what he knows about kris still applies.

“what about you?” kris presses.

“beijing,” luhan says. kris makes a mild noise of disgust that luhan politely pretends not to hear. he knows what people think of his hometown.

“is it snowing?”

“yeah,” luhan says. “it’s miserable. you’d die, you know. just, like, drop dead. from the cold.”

“are you out? it sounds noisy.” luhan can’t even imagine. he’d tuned out the constant hum of it, the passersby and the traffic and the _city_ , but now he’s listening for it. for the silence on kris’ end, except the occasional sound of a car honking.

“i’m out,” luhan says after a moment. “hey.”

kris hums in acknowledgement, but luhan isn’t sure how to continue.

“is this—are we—?” he stops. suddenly he doesn’t think he wants to know the answer. “how are you doing?”

“i’m good,” kris says slowly, like he knows what luhan is avoiding asking. he probably does. he’s always been too good at guessing what luhan is thinking. “i’m—because, you know, i went back to canada. and they—so i’m on—well. maybe i should ask how you’re doing.”

“i’m fine,” luhan replies, automatic. kris huffs—halfway between a laugh and a sigh. luhan doesn’t blame him.

“you’ll have to forgive me if i don’t really believe you,” kris says, “because you’ve been saying that as long as i’ve known you.”

“i’ve felt… like _this_ for as long as i can remember,” luhan says. “i just didn’t realize how dangerous that is, until you.”

“until me,” kris repeats. “are you seeing a doctor?”

“not for that,” luhan hedges. he’s considered it, of course he has, and he’d gone to a few appointments back—in the immediate aftermath. of everything.

“maybe you should,” kris says softly. “i’m not—i don’t want to lose you.”

and that— _that’s_ hard. it’s not what luhan wants to hear, from kris. it makes everything more complicated.

maybe kris really can read his mind, because he quickly adds, “you’re one of my best friends. maybe—when you’re ready—we could be… something else, but i don’t need that. i just want—you. to be happy.”

and luhan—he’s not sure what that is, exactly. how much ground could he give up before he falls in entirely?

but what he says to kris is, “find a doctor in beijing who’s reputable and doesn’t think i’m a freak, and maybe i’ll consider it.”

he won’t, not really, because even the act of seeing a therapist is an admission of guilt.

kris says, “you’re not a freak. you just… didn’t have enough people in your life who were willing to give you the love you deserved.”

“great,” luhan says, doing his best to come off as sarcastic even though his chest feels tight. “listen, i have to go, so…”

“okay,” kris says easily. at least he knows when he’s pushed too far. “talk to you soon, then, right?”

“yeah,” luhan agrees, and hangs up.


	3. C is for...

> **_cafuné_** (portuguese, n.) - the act of tenderly running one’s fingers through someone’s hair

yifan—hands, coated in ash. dust rising up from the rubble and clinging to skin damp with sweat.

ears ringing. he takes a breath and chokes on it, too much dust still clouding the air, yet to settle. teams are still pulling people out from under buildings. some of them are still breathing.

and yifan, yifan sort of feels like he’s not breathing. the world ground to a halt, the only sound his heartbeat echoing inside his skull. and then—

“yifan!”

the only sound that could ever—has ever—cut through the noise. and yifan’s turning before he has time to think, and luhan is there, and for once he doesn’t hesitate to fall into yifan’s arms. yifan exhales; allows tension to slip out of him through the cracks in his armor. because this—it’s not easy. yifan had known, when the republic made the call, that it wouldn’t be easy. survivor’s guilt, even though the game was rigged to begin with.

luhan’s hair is soft, somehow, slipping through yifan’s fingers, and the fact of him this close makes the weight a little easier to bear.

quietly, luhan asks, “did they know?”

“they planned it,” yifan admits. can’t help feeling like all these innocent lives are on his hands, because he knew and did nothing to stop it.

luhan drags the thought forcibly from yifan’s mind. “there was nothing you could have done.”

yifan knows this. he holds luhan at arm’s length to look at him a little closer: the cuts and scrapes and forming bruises, but nothing permanent. nothing long-lasting. they both are a little worse for wear, in this, but they will come out unscathed and unscarred.

“i love you,” yifan says. luhan already knows it, but somehow it feels like another admission anyway. a confession, although yifan can think of plenty of other things he’s done that are far more deserving of a confession than this.

and luhan—luhan knows this, about yifan, and loves him back anyway.

* * *

 

> **_chéngquán //_** ** _成全_**  (chinese, v.) - “to become whole”; to selflessly help someone achieve their aim

“you know,” yixing says slowly, “that this isn’t… that i’m not—”

“yeah,” luhan says. also slowly. “well, yifan’s being—i’m not trying to say that i think you _are_. just that—i can’t be there. he’s got this idea in his head that we could—that we’d be better off without…”

“don’t,” yixing says, preemptive, and unnecessary because luhan hadn’t planned on saying their names anyway. would have found some other word to fill in the blank, if yixing had let him get that far. “you and yifan never fight.”

“he never…” luhan ducks his head. “we should have. way before this.”

yixing doesn’t answer. after an eternal minute, he says, “i have a headache.”

“me too,” luhan says. it’s the truth.

yixing arches an eyebrow.

“its name is yifan.” this is not the truth. yixing doesn’t care for the distinction, and steps aside to allow luhan inside the apartment.

“how the fuck do you tolerate cities, anyway?” luhan asks, toeing off his shoes. trailing into the living room. “i mean, i can’t stand this—constant noise. and i’m not you.”

“for jongdae,” yixing says simply, and that’s that.

it’s not as if luhan is unfamiliar with the concept; he makes the same sacrifice for yifan, with their cozy little apartment on the twenty-eighth floor of some fancy building that only houses business ceos and trust fund men in their thirties. and yifan who keeps the curtains shut ninety percent of the time, for luhan, even though the view from their window is allegedly impressive.

“the things we do for love,” yixing adds, soft, like he can read luhan’s every thought. maybe he can. luhan’s never asked about the extent of yixing’s powers, or anyone else’s—too afraid that the recipient of such a question would feel obligated to reflect it back to him.

but maybe—if any of them could understand, maybe, it might be yixing. so luhan asks. “what is it like?”

and yixing, miraculously, follows along. “loud,” he says. “i can feel everything. everyone’s heartbeats, their life coursing through them—it’s a lot. sometimes it’s all just too much. like standing under a jet taking off. and the plants, too. they’re not as loud, but it’s still…”

“yeah,” luhan says.

“yeah?” yixing repeats. gentle. this is not a conversation they’ve had before, despite having known each other for well over a thousand years. having circled around each other like this.

finally, luhan nods. “it’s not… not life, for me. obviously. but everything calls to me. like if i focused enough i could take it apart at a sub-atomic level.”

“i think,” yixing says, “that you’re more powerful than any of us.”

luhan isn’t—he just sometimes appears stronger. he says as much to yixing, who only shakes his head.

“what are you really doing here, luhan?”

and luhan, he can’t lie to yixing. “i don’t want to be alone. and yifan… we aren’t really fighting. he wants to follow… _them_ , but he won’t even admit it to himself. because of me.”

“so you walked out,” yixing fills in. and luhan nods. “and he just…?”

“he’ll go after them,” luhan says. and shrugs. “he knows how i am. unpredictable, unstable and all that. who knows when i’ll return home? since i’m not holding him back he’s free to chase them for as long as he likes.”

“he doesn’t think of you like that.”

“i didn’t say he does,” luhan says. “i just don’t want him sacrificing anything for me.”

“and yet here you are,” yixing replies, “sacrificing everything for him.”

“he is everything,” is what luhan comes up with, and yixing lets the conversation drop after that.

* * *

 

> **_commuovere_**  (italian, v.) - to stir, to touch, to move to tears

_i’ll be your rabbit in the headlights (we’ll never get to heaven)_

this—the quiet, low pulse of the party somewhere beneath their feet, the held breath and the waiting—is the feeling luhan keeps chasing, backed up into a stranger’s bedroom with someone else’s lips on his neck, the tension strung like christmas lights in luhan’s lungs—the desperation of it all.

yifan calls him clueless and hopeless. cold-hearted, cold-blooded, luring innocent boys in with promises of _tomorrow morning_ only to leave them hanging at the door. at the end of the day, though, yifan is the more cold-blooded of the pair, even if he won’t admit it.

there’s a lot of things he won’t admit.

the boy pulls away from him. “i’m not doing this if you’re not interested.”

luhan wets his lips, a dart of his tongue, slipping back into this character he’s made. a quiet but meaningful once-over, slow to trail back up to meet the boy’s eyes. “i’m interested.”

the boy only snorts in response. “whatever. if you’re still interested after you’ve got your shit sorted out, maybe you can call me.”

the door closes behind him and luhan groans, flopping back onto the bed. the party music is loud but senseless enough that luhan wouldn’t be able to identify a song even if he were familiar with the genre. his phone is ringing.

he’s not particularly interested in answering but he does anyway. “what do you want?”

“what’s wrong?”

“you called me,” luhan says, trying to stamp down his annoyance. he’s not annoyed with yifan, after all.

well, maybe a little.

“yeah,” yifan agrees slowly, “but you always… you sound upset.”

“what kind of upset?” luhan prompts, with the only aim of keeping yifan distracted enough to not press further. “what’s my tell?”

at length, yifan says, “you muddle your words when you talk, normally. when you’re upset or distracted, you sound more… i don’t know. posh.”

luhan wrinkles his nose. “i’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that.”

“i’m not saying it’s obvious,” yifan says. “just that you do it. and i notice.”

“stop paying so much attention to me,” luhan says, only half-joking.

“you started it,” yifan replies, easily, this time allowing luhan to deflect the conversation. he doesn’t always. some days he’s more indulgent than others. “are you coming home tonight?”

luhan hadn’t been planning on it, exactly, but now his plans are shot and the numb not-quite feeling working through his veins isn’t inspiring him to try again with someone else. but going home to yifan means _going home_ , in a sense that luhan isn’t sure he’s ready to approach yet.

but yifan waits with him, silent while luhan works through the decision on his own, and really that’s all the push luhan needs.

“yeah,” he says softly. “i’m leaving now.”

“okay,” yifan says, just as softly. “see you soon.”


End file.
